Are You Receiving the Proper Notices?

Before the IRS is able to issue a levy against you individually or against your business, it is required to provide you with the proper notices. But how can you be sure that you are receiving all of the correct notices up until this point? The IRS typically starts with a notice telling you there is a balance due on the particular return you filed and then progresses to a “Final Notice of Intent to Levy.” A taxpayer has 30 days from the date of this letter to either fully pay the liability or take some sort of action on the account. Otherwise, the IRS can issue a levy.

Whether you are dealing with the Automated Collection Division of the IRS or local revenue officers, they are for the most part issuing the proper notices before taking any type of action. However, there is one specific area where notices aren’t always being properly issued. According to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) this is happening when there is an additional tax assessment.

When it comes to an additional tax assessment, a completely new notice should go out, giving the taxpayer an additional 30 days before any type of levy action can occur for that particular period. Even if the taxpayer had received the final notice previously and 30 days had run by, once the additional assessment takes place the new notice trumps the old one and the 30 days would start over again. It’s important to point out that the new notice would only be for the particular period in which the additional tax assessment took place. If you owed for multiple periods, the IRS could still levy on the periods that did not receive the additional assessment.

Should the IRS ever issue a levy against you or your business on a period with an additional tax assessment and it either didn’t give you the proper additional notice or didn’t wait the statutory required 30 days, there are steps you can take to fight back and get that levy released. The good news is that the IRS is aware that it isn’t always following procedure when it comes to additional assessments and it is taking the necessary steps to correct the problem. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, it’s always important to know and understand your rights as a taxpayer. We can help.